Jesyka Traynor (she/her) is a PhD Candidate in the Department of English Language and Literature at Queenâs University in Kingston, Ontario. She holds a BA and MA in English Literature and her work examines contemporary Californian literature, with a focus on representations of the Californian landscape and mythology by Californian authors. Jesyka also does research on true crime. Her work on women in twenty-first century true crime has been published in Crime Fiction Studies. Jesyka is the co-creator and Co-Editor-in-Chief of . She is also an Assistant Editor with . Find her on and .
- Contemporary American Literature
- Californian Literature
- True Crime and Criminology
- Crime Fiction
- American Studies
- Ecocriticisim and Landscape Studies
- Contemporary Canadian Literature
- Canadian/American Relations in literature
Friars, Rachel M and Jesyka Traynor. ââDogged, Insightful, and Humaneâ: Writing Womenâs Lives in Twenty-First-Century True Crime.â Crime Fiction Studies, vol. 3, no.1, 2022, Edinburgh University Press.
Traynor, Jesyka. PopMeC Assocation for U.S. Popular Culture Studies, 2021.
Academic Book Reviews
Traynor, Jesyka. Climate Lyricism by Min Hyoung Song. European Journal of American Culture, vol 43, no.1, 2024.
Conference Presentations
2023: ACCUTE, York University, Toronto, Ontario
âIndifferent machinery teeth": Landscape and Destruction in Helena MarĂa Viramontes' Their Dogs Came With Them
2023: ACCUTE, York University, Toronto, Ontario
Panel: CAAS-"Making Exceptions, Taking Refuge"
Paper: âEvents without memory. Bones without flesh": Canadian Exceptionalism and The Way the Crow Flies
2022: Framing Serial Killing: Changing Narratives, International Virtual Conference
Paper: "They walked, like living people": Demythologization and Boys Enter the House
2022: Joan Didion: Life and/with/through words, International Virtual Conference
Paper: âThe California of milk and honey": Legacy and Mythology Joan Didionâs Run River
2022: ACCUTE, Montreal, Quebec
Panel Organizer/Panel Chair: âAmerican Literary Geographiesâ
2021-ACCUTE, Virtual Conference.
Paper: âThis is how you are a citizenâ: Sounds and Silences in Claudia Rankineâs Citizen: An American Lyric
2020-ALA, San Diego, California.
Panel: âAlternative Realities in American Textsâ
Paper: âThereâs more than one way to lose your life to a killerâ: Tracking Reproduction and Adaption in Fincherâs Zodiac and Tarantinoâs Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (conference cancelled)
2020-CAAS, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario
Paper: âThe past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty spaceâ: 9/11 and Disaster in Teju Coleâs Open City (conference cancelled)
2020-CAAS/CCLA, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario
Panel: âLos Angeles Literature and Cultureâ
Paper: âA place and a predicamentâ: True Crime Depictions of South Central Los Angeles (conference cancelled)
2019-ACCUTE, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia
Paper: âI was trying not to be a lot of types of guys back thenâ: Hegemonic Masculinity and Selfhood in Lynn Coadyâs The Antagonist
2019-The Age of Anxiety: Literary Studies in a Culture of Risk, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario (attended)
2018-(De)Composing Death, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
Paper: âAnd I am not resignedâ: Tracing Joan Didionâs Magical Thinking
My dissertation focuses on contemporary Californian authors. Specifically, my project examines representations of Californian landscape and mythology in works by John Steinbeck, Joan Didion, and Helena MarĂa Viramontes
